It has been more than a year since nursing assistant Schenise Apple was discovered dead in her apartment at the nurses’ quarters at Mahdia, in Region Eight, and her mother continues to seek justice from authorities, whom she is still waiting on to launch a promised inquiry.
“I am calling for a full inquiry into the death of my child and I am calling on the relevant authorities to look into the matter because this is not fair. This is unfair,” a still grieving Shonette Apple told Sunday Stabroek.
On the evening of July 2nd, 2019, Schenise Apple, 26, of Block 22, Linden, Region Ten, was found hanging in her room at the nurses’ quarters.
The then police commander of the division, Kevin Adonis, had told this newspaper that the woman’s lifeless body was spotted by an individual who passed by her room.
The woman’s friends had told investigators that she was last seen on the evening of Monday, July 1st, 2019, after she completed her shift. She was not seen during the course of the following day nor did she show up for her shift, Adonis had said.
The police had initially stated that they were treating Apple’s death as a suspected suicide.
An autopsy showed that Schenise died as a result of asphyxiation due to a compression injury to the neck.
Shonette believes that her daughter was possibly drugged and murdered.
“I know my child. Suicide is not her thing. Number two, you could have seen an injection mark that somebody bore her in her hand. Another thing: nobody commit suicide and be like that and if you look at her body at that time you could have seen like she had a struggle with somebody. Because of her complexion, you seeing the marks like somebody hold her down,” she explained.
Re-assigned
Shonette explained that in November, 2018, Schenise received a letter from the Ministry of Public Health informing her that she will be re-assigned to the Mahdia District Hospital, Region Eight. At the time, Schenise was attached to the Linden Hospital complex.
Initially, her parents opposed the re-assignment. “We didn’t want her to go to Mahdia because we know that she really don’t know places and so on and for her quietness, we didn’t want her to go. The father went to query to see if he could have get her to not go. They said that she has to go because that is the contract she signed,” Shonette said.
However, they eventually made their peace with the reassignment. It is a decision they have since regretted.
Shonette told Sunday Stabroek that she and her daughter shared a close relationship and they would talk to each other three times a day. “She would say anything to me,” she noted.
She related that she last spoke to Schenise on July 1st, 2019. “The last time we talk to Schenise was on Monday night (July 1), quarter to 8, because she worked the 1 to 9 shift. About quarter to 8 she called and she said ‘Mom it’s a busy shift’ and [that] when she get home she will call. I did not get that call,” Shonette added
She said she assumed there was an issue with the electricity and Schenise did not get to charge her phone. “Because she said the lights normally go off at 12. So I said man either she tired or the phone didn’t get to charge. So we didn’t receive any call,” Shonette said.
The following morning, she made several calls to Schenise’s phone but they went unanswered. She continued to try to contact her daughter throughout the day but did not get through to her. “So I said man this is not like her… we call, call. No answer. I called even to the hospital up there, no body answer,” Shonette added.
In a bid to determine if Schenise was fine, she telephoned one of her colleagues whom she had left for Mahdia with but also got no answer.
Shonette said another of her daughters asked her for the colleague’s number and called her. “On the first ring my daughter ring the colleague phone she answer. So she said to her that she want to know where she sister is… my daughter told me that she said Schenise is dead. So after that I see my daughter clutching to her stomach… she could not have talked to me and I end up shaking she and the only words that came out of her mouth was Schenise dead,” Shonette further related.
About five minutes later, she said another colleague visited the family’s house and showed them pictures of Schenise’s body as it was found.
‘Full inquiry’
About two weeks after Schenise’s death, the Department of Public Informa-tion (DPI) had reported that Minister of Public Health Volda Lawrence committed to seeking an inquest into Schenise’s death.
The report had said that the decision to seek an inquest was taken after Lawrence met with both of Schenise’s parents.
The report also noted that while initially the Ministry of Public Health, along with the Guyana Police Force (GPF), treated the investigation as a suspected suicide, the minister determined that an inquest was necessary after meeting with the grieving family members. “It is only in that way we will be able to have a deeper investigation into what really happened, so I am asking for an inquest… I am happy that I’m taking this step… All the answers to questions must come out in that inquest,” Lawrence was quoted as saying in the report.
However, to date, Shonette said the inquest has not started. “Ms Lawrence told us that she is going to do a full inquiry in the death of my child and up to a day like today, nobody knows anything about an inquest. This girl was a health worker. She served this country with pride and dignity,” she said.
Following, Schenise’s death, Shonette said that no official even reached out to the family. “The ministry, no body from the hospital, the matron, the sister, nobody at all didn’t call or ever reach out to this family. Not even a day like today to say ‘Mom your daughter die’ and whatever. Nothing. They did nothing. I was so disappointed….I am still angry to know that the ministry took my daughter, send her to Mahdia saying that everything will be okay and that’s how my daughter came back. I saw my daughter on a stretcher coming dead,” she explained.
Shonette related that she and her family even tried to meet with Lawrence in person shortly after Schenise’s death, but she reportedly refused to meet with them. “…We went to Georgetown to talk to Ms Lawrence. Me, the father with some of his colleagues, and she refused to speak to us,” she added.
It was not until after family members expressed their disappointment on Facebook that Lawrence travelled to Linden and met with them, she said. However, it was not a meeting they expected. “We received a call from an individual asking for us to meet her at the Democratic Council in Region 10. We didn’t even knew it was her (Lawrence). On arriving there, then is when we saw Ms Lawrence there,” Shonette added.
The meeting with Lawrence, according to Shonette, was to inform the family that the pathologist ruled out that Schenise was raped or murdered and instead determined that she took her own life. At that time, the family was not provided with the autopsy report as yet.
“A week after my daughter’s death, we didn’t get no autopsy report but Volda Lawrence could have told us that Nehaul Singh told her that my daughter wasn’t raped,” she said.
“What I see is that the Ministry try to cover up the act not to make them look bad,” she, however, added.
Shonette was unsure if the police probe into her daughter’s death was still active until about two weeks ago, when a detective approached her for a statement. It was the first she has given since Schenise’s death.
Several efforts made by Sunday Stabroek to contact the current police commander of Region 8, Ramesh Ashram, proved futile.
Shonette said that there are at least three persons who she believes the police should be “looking into” in relation to her daughter’s death.
Just about a month before Schenise died, she reportedly informed her mother that she was “molested” while at work. It is unclear if the police are aware of this allegation. “There are people that she complain [about] from that same work site who used to molest her and she reach out to me, she reach out to the father, she reached out to her boyfriend. Nothing was done about it. Nobody said anything but they didn’t know that she text and told us everything. We have the message them and because of that they fired the person and the person threatened her saying what he is now going to do to her and they sit on it and expect that somebody child must just go down the drain just like that,” the woman lamented.
